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Comment by xavk | Hacker News Reader

> I'm fairly certain LinkedIn has never helped me in my job search. This is likely not true for everyone, but I'd go so far as to say that unless your profile is exceptional for some reason, it probably does more harm than good. You and I are just another candidate in a tall stack—ie. our profiles are more useless information they can use to cross our name off.

This is exactly the problem that sparked us starting https://otta.com - we speak to job seekers on a daily basis and the overwhelming feedback we hear is that LinkedIn really doesn't help people. We're doing our best to change that - just in London right now, and just for tech companies, but soon (hopefully) everywhere.

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I do almost nothing on LinkedIn. I used to keep it up to date; I still have hundreds of outdated, barely relevant contacts. My CV hasn't been updated in years.

And yet recruiters keep finding me through LinkedIn, and I keep getting freelance positions through those recruiters. I put very little effort in finding new positions, but they're always available.

A coworker on my current project who is also a freelancer is much more active. He tries to contact people in companies he wants to work for and gets interesting jobs that way without having recruiters as middlemen. That takes more effort but saves money. Maybe I should do that too.

Maybe it's different for freelancers. Maybe the Dutch market is different from the author's market. I'm no fan of LinkedIn, but it seems to work for me.

That's interesting, I get a lot of job offers via LinkedIn. For my last job search I did very little direct searching for jobs I had enough just from linked in.

I think Linked in helps more if you are experienced and have a decent network - it probably not going to help a new graduate or some one looking for a second job.

The agencies using it can be a bit variable, pre covid-19 I was pitched a Grade 7/6 Job in the UK civil service and the agency seemed clueless - Grade 7 and 6 are very senior positions Think the sort of Gig Mat Cuts Has

I just ran thorough the process of looking at jobs as a potential candidate. What a breath of fresh air compared to the obscured roles that recruiters post.

Great job.

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